Our Financial Godfathers

At the Fed, it's do as we say, not as we do. A pretty crummy jobs report.

By

Alan Abelson

Updated Jan. 11, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

By

Alan Abelson

Updated Jan. 11, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

IF YOU'RE INTO ZANY, THIS COULD BE JUST your kind of year. What inspires that epiphany is the eruption of kooky happenings in 2010's first full week. For openers, in the wake of the foiled Christmas plot to blow up a Northwest plane as it prepared to land in Detroit, terrorist tremors were in full bloom from New Jersey to California.

On Sunday, Jan. 3, Newark Liberty International Airport was shut down and put on high alert after a man was spotted in the sterile zone (which is no-go for unauthorized beings), then slipped...